Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Thanksgiving at Little Dix Bay, Virgin Gorda, BVI (Part 1)

My great uncle Quin took us on the most amazing trip for Thanksgiving. We went to Little Dix Bay in the British Virgin Islands for the week. I'm still in mourning that we are home :( It was a great week with amazing food, sunny weather, endless entertainment (sailing, swimming, hiking, boat riding, tennis, golf cart riding, exploring, sand castle building) and lots of quality family time. There is nothing easy about traveling with 12 people, especially when the majority includes Shaw/Flowers blood (haha), but it was totally worth it! I hope Grant, Katie and David (the in-law crew) would say the same! We never said we are low maintenance! I'm going to divide this trip up into several posts because I took a LOT of pics.

 All of the "kids" (me, Grant, William, David, Julie, Katie and Douglas) stayed in a villa. The most fun part of the trip was getting to wake up and drink coffee with my siblings and their fiances and live in the same house as them :) My how things have changed since we were all in high school together!
 It was SUCH a treat to have Penney and Juanita join us on the trip! William was smitten with "Juanina" by the end of the trip. She is such a special part of my family and it made me so happy to see her and William forming a special relationship. 
 The most generous, selfless person I know. It was so much fun having a week with Quin!!!!

 Dinner night 1. William was a trooper throughout late, long (over 3 hrs. some nights) dinners.


 Enjoying an ice cream treat after eating all of his dinner. 

 How hilarious is this?!?! Juju and William were matching the first night at dinner. Obviously it was not planned. William got a kick out of having on the same shirt as Juju. 

 William settled right in to island life :)
View from our villa

 Swimming made this little boy HUNGRY!

 M&M face




William is one lucky little boy to have an aunt like Katie! We love her soooooo much!!!

About an hour after this swimming fun, William was singing "No more monkeys jumping on the bed" and not wearing his "listening ears" during nap time which resulted in him busting his chin open. This led to Grant, William and I spending the rest of the afternoon in the Caribbean emergency walk-in clinic getting William's chin stitched up. To say it was traumatic is an understatement. I've never seen William so scared before which broke my heart. I couldn't stay in the room while he was getting the numbing shot until William started crying/screaming "I'm scared and need my Mommy." At that point I decided I better suck it up and help. The doctor told us he couldn't swim for the rest of the week which was a real bummer but William was such a little trooper and understood that swimming would hurt his boo boo and never pitched a fit about not being able to swim. 

To be continued...

Friday, November 14, 2014

Pregnancy Update

Time is flying by this pregnancy, whereas I remember it creeping along when I was pregnant with William. I can't believe I'm already 21 weeks, half-way there! I'm thankful the nausea is a thing of the past and my energy level has returned. All of my check-ups with the OB have gone great. Although I feel like William was more active in the womb, baby girl's kicks are INTENSE. It's so embarrassing because I usually jump and scream regardless of where I am or who I'm talking to. I was in a staff meeting around 16 weeks and literally squealed and jolted out of my chair when she kicked. I was mortified but everyone just laughed and probably thinks I'm a huge spaz. I don't remember William's kicks startling me this much. I felt the first kick at 12 weeks when we were in Dallas for Lee and Thad's wedding. I'm pretty sure she did a somersault that time. Since then I mostly feel her moving around at night before I go to bed.

 15 week ultrasound when we found out SHE was a GIRL :)

16 week bump

 20 week ultrasound when they confirmed gender. The picture above resembles a baby deer more than a baby girl to me :)
Sweet little profile. I love her so already!

21 week bump!

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

2.5 Years Old

William turned 2 & 1/2 on October 25th. I'm a little late updating the blog because we have been so busy! I keep telling Grant this may be my favorite age (I know I've said that before) because he's so talkative, yet still so innocent, and hilarious at the same time. Now don't get me wrong...he can throw the mother of all fits and be as defiant as they come, but he also has the most loving, gentle spirit. 
 He talks NONSTOP and you never know what is going to come out of his mouth. A couple things I'll want to remember:

His new saying is "you say the wrong word." For instance, I called one of his trucks a 'car' the other day and he adamantly said "you say the wrong word. say it again." He's very into the semantics of language right now :)

Lately he also says "I don't know" a lot. If you ask him WHY he did something wrong, he'll say "I don't know" very matter of factly. 

When he has the hiccups, he says "my throw-up hurts."

He loves reporting on who all went to time out in his class when I pick him up from school. He's brutally honest and always tells me when he went to time out too.

Lately, he comments on my clothes which cracks me up! I hear "I don't yike those pants/shirt/dress" more than "I weally yike those pants/shirt/dress."


 He's fiercely independent and we hear "I do it mySELT" a LOT. However, he usually demands we play with him at home. He likes ALL the attention on him. 
 He's a creature of habit and loves routine. Every Tuesday I take him to story time at the library and we go eat lunch with Rebecca and Liam after. He wakes up on Tuesdays asking when it's time to go to "shake shake" and asks if we're eating lunch with Mrs. Rebecca and Liam. He also knows that on most Tuesdays we go to the park after nap. 
 Thanks to our wonderful daycare, he's potty trained at school and has very few accidents. He even stays dry during his nap. Mommy and Daddy are a little lazy at home and put him in pull ups. Pretty soon we plan on being more consistent at home with it. He even wakes up with a dry diaper most mornings. 
 His sleeping habits have been terrible the past few months and we cannot figure out what's causing it. He goes to bed at 8pm and is waking up between 4:30-5:30 every.single.morning. We've tried everything to get him to sleep later with no success. He still takes a nap from 12-1:30ish everyday and he definitely still needs/wants a nap. 
 Speaking of sleep, we have plans to move him to a big boy bed this upcoming weekend!! I'm excited and terrified at the same time. It can't get much worse that it already is though. 
 He's very into cars, trains, motorcycles, boats, etc...any mode of transportation! He will actually play alone for 30ish minutes at a time pushing a car around the sofa. We are hoping to get him a train table for Christmas. 
 He's very interested in talking about family. He likes to talk about how Juju is my mommy and his "grandmodur" and Granny is Daddy's mommy and also his "grandmodur". He's also starting to place our siblings and understands our relationship to them. 
 He's starting to understand that Mommy is having a baby and he will have a little sister. He knows the difference between boys and girls because he will frequently tell us so and so is GIRL, etc...He loves talking about his friends at school and tell us Charlie is his best friend. He refers to some of the younger 2's in his class as "babies" and the older 2's are "big boys" like him. 
 The day he actually turned 2.5. He's going to the dentist for the first time next week! I think he'll do great because he's always done well at the doctor but we shall see.
Grant and I attended his school Halloween parade and loved seeing William in his element with his school friends. He was so excited to see us on the bleachers in the gym during the parade and gave us a huge grin every time he passed by :) I got teary eyed during the parade because he seemed so big and confident parading around the gym with his school friends. 
After the parade, all the moms joined the kids in their classroom for a Halloween party. I loved getting to see him say the blessing with his class and watching him interact with his buddies. I think he enjoyed showing me around his classroom and telling me where he sits for lunch, story time, nap. He was even excited to show me the time out spot :)

The stomach bug hit our family hard last week. I enjoyed the extra snuggles and long naps. We watched cartoons all day long. His favorite TV show is Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and he'd watch 10 episodes in a row if we'd let him. Favorite foods continue to be: nutri-grain bars, cereal, cheese, apple sauce, grapes, pineapple, any fruit/veggie baby food pouch, rice, hamburgers, tacos, black beans, chicken fingers, fries, spaghetti/lasagna, chicken salad, grilled turkey/cheese sandwich. Needless to say, we struggle with getting him to eat any real veggies that aren't out of a baby food pouch.
Almost every afternoon we hang out on our street with neighbors. He loves checking to see who is home each time we pull on our street. 
Grant and I took him with us to my 20 week ultrasound last week so he could get a sneak peak at the little girl that he will soon share all the attention with. After I finished my ultrasound, he said "my turn now" and hopped right up on the table. 
William, you bring so much laughter, joy, and love to our family. We love you to the moon and back!!!

Monday, November 3, 2014

Trick-or-Treat

This little fireman really got into trick-or-treating this year and has asked multiple times since Halloween night if we can do it again! Sorry bud, that's a once-a-year gig.




We trick-or-treated with our neighbors this year and had so much fun! After braving the freezing, windy weather we all got together for soup. 

 William and his neighbor buddy, Webber, before we headed out. It was just a coincidence that they had the same costume :)






It was a great night and I'm already looking forward to next year!!